1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a spray quantity control nozzle used for an aerosol container having a flow control valve with a function for varying aerosol flow in two stages.
An aerosol container having a flow control valve with the aforesaid function is disclosed in Japanese Examined Patent Application No. Sho 62-41074 (1987) wherein the flow control valve comprises a valve stem and has such function that a passage for the contents of the aerosol container is closed when the valve stem is positioned in an initial position and is opened when the valve stem at the initial position is depressed; and quantities of the contents flowing through the passage are restrained to be small when the valve stem is depressed into a first depression zone corresponding to a smaller depression of the valve stem from the initial position and are increased when the valve stem is depressed into a second depression zone corresponding to a larger depression of the valve stem from the initial position. Hence, when a spray nozzle mounted to the valve stem is depressed by users with a finger of their hands to cause the valve stem to be pushed into the first depression zone, spray quantities of the contents are made smaller. And when the valve stem is pushed into the second depression zone, the spray quantities are made larger.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The spray nozzle disclosed in the Japanese Publication No. Sho 62-41074 is not provided with a means for precisely defining the two stages of depression depths when the spray nozzle is pushed by the user with a finger. Thus, it is not easy for the users to determine what extent they should depress the spray nozzle to cause the spray quantities to be small or increased as required. The users of the aerosol need to manually arrange or adjust, i.e., reduce or increase, by themselves the depression depths of the spray nozzle while watching the quantities of the contents actually dispensed, so that the flow control valve's stem may be changed in depression depths from the initial position to be brought into the first or the second depression zone to cause the spray quantities to be made smaller or larger.
The manual arrangement of the nozzle's depression depths with watching the quantities of the actually dispensed contents for performing the two stage adjustment of spray quantities is not readily achievable and fails often. In detail, the spray quantities occasionally or often unnecessarily become larger contrary to the user's intention to have smaller spray quantities, or a sufficiently large quantitiy of spraying is not available when the spray quantities are to be increased. Hence, the contents of the aerosol container, for example, paint, is sprayed in an unnecessarily large quantity on a surface to be painted, or spraying on the surface is incomplete, thereby causing that surface to be not excellently finished.